Sleep Paralysis… or Was It a Spirit?

They say it has a medical name — Sleep Paralysis. It's when the brain wakes up before the body does. You see hallucinations because the brain is still pulling images from your dreams. There's nothing mysterious about it. It's simply the body's mechanisms working at the wrong time.

But that day… it didn't feel like just a "hallucination" to me.

This happened to me when I was in my early twenties. I'm not sure exactly what year it was, but even though many years have passed, I can still remember every sensation I experienced at the time.

It wasn't even nighttime.

I was sleeping during the day, and I was even sleeping with the lights on. At some point, I suddenly dreamed that a woman in a red dress was standing there, staring at me. Both of my wrists felt as if hands were grabbing them and squeezing them. I could clearly feel that they were hands squeezing my wrists. I could feel the fingers and the pressure of the grip so clearly!

But I couldn't move my body. I couldn't open my eyes, but I could see the image of the woman in the red dress staring at me in my dream. I was certain that I was already conscious. I was scared and breathing heavily. The situation felt like an emergency, but because I couldn't move, all I could do was try to keep myself calm.

I tried to hold on to my awareness and told myself, "No! I'm dreaming. It's not real." But it didn't work. I could feel the pressure around my wrists getting stronger than before. That made me think that I must have been attacked by a spirit.

I needed to ask for help, but I couldn't remember a single prayer. My mind was completely blank. The only thing I could think of was the names of angels.

But honestly, I had never encountered or dreamed about angels even once. But in a situation like that, I couldn't remember any prayers anyway. So I kept calling out the names of angels over and over, hoping that I would survive.

But then, not long after...

I heard a sound — Meowwwww

It was a high-pitched meow, and I felt something poking my arm.

Instead of focusing on the spirit like I had been at first, I found myself focusing on the meowing instead. Then I slowly managed to open my eyes.

I turned to look beside me. It was a gray tabby cat with green eyes. I didn't own her. She was a stray cat. I sometimes secretly fed her, and she had come in through the window that I had left open.

The symptoms gradually started to fade. The feeling of my wrists being squeezed slowly disappeared. I slowly moved my body and sat up on the bed. I tried to breathe in and out, then hugged the cat and thanked her for coming to wake me up.

Honestly, I'm still not sure what exactly happened that day. Was it just a nightmare? Or was it Sleep Paralysis? Or did I really encounter a spirit?

I searched for information to find an answer to what had happened.

And I found some basic information saying that Sleep Paralysis is a disruption in the stages of sleep, where the muscles and brain don't work in sync. The brain temporarily puts most of the body's muscles into a state of paralysis to prevent us from moving or acting out the events in our dreams, which could potentially cause harm.

It can be caused by sleep deprivation, not getting enough rest, an irregular sleep schedule, stress, anxiety, and possibly mental health problems as well.

But for me at that age, I didn't seem to have any reason that should have caused Sleep Paralysis.

And another thing!

The information said that Sleep Paralysis can involve being unable to move, being unable to speak, chest pressure as if something is sitting on your chest, hallucinations, and intense fear.

I understand those symptoms. But what happened to me was that I couldn't move, I couldn't speak, and I may have hallucinated because I dreamed of seeing a woman in a red dress in the room. But I didn't feel any pressure on my chest. I didn't feel like something was sitting on my chest. And the thing I still can't explain is the feeling of hands squeezing both of my wrists. What was that?

Science can explain everything, except for the feeling that has stayed with me to this day. Whether it was simply my brain playing tricks on me, or whether something really followed me… I still can't find a definite answer.